Philosopher's Stone versus Sorcerer's Stone

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 156236

I would like to add a few more thoughts on the Philosopher's 
Stone/Sorcerer's Stone  discussion. I apologise to the House 
Elves that my thinking strays into the "medium which cannot 
be named" because I believe there is some useful 
cross-referencing there.

Although, as a Christian, I have little time for alchemical theories 
especially where people are trying to integrate them with Christian 
belief, I have met the idea of the Philosopher's Stone many years 
ago. As various people on the group have remarked, it is not an 
unknown concept. On the other hand, as I pointed out yesterday, 
if you enter Sorcerer's Stone into Google, you get 4.9m references 
and most of them seem to point to Harry.

Again, I would agree with some members that the change to 
`sorcerer' is one of the things which has roused the extreme 
Christian right. In passing, although I am an evangelical, I do 
not espouse some of their views. In UK English at least, although 
the dictionary definitions are the same, there is a subtle difference 
in the use of `sorcerer' and `wizard'. Had the book been renamed 
`Harry Potter and the Wizard's Stone', the furore might not have 
developed. `Sorcerer' carries a cachet of  being evil, of being linked 
with dark magic whereas a wizard can be someone like Gandalf in 
LOTR or Cadellin in Alan Garner's `Weirdstone of Brisingamen' – a 
person on the side of the light. We talk of someone being a `wizard 
at X' but never a `sorcerer at X'. On  balance, I think that the name 
change was a silly idea anyway.

Just with reference to the film, since someone reported that the 
characters use the term `Sorcerer's Stone' in the US release, it 
would seem that there must be two versions, at least of the DVDs. 
My PS DVD has the characters quite definitely using `Philosopher's 
Stone'. Does this mean that certain lines of dialogue were re-shot 
for the American version? If so, fhis is interesting, because in my 
version, I am still irritated by the fact that the sub-titles are in 
US English!